Texas Has Stepped Up
January 21st, 2009
In the post about the little girl that was killed by the dog, I said that laws need to be strengthened to punish dog owners who are neglectful, when their dog maims or kills someone.
I did not know this, but Texas has just such a law, and it has been used for the first time to send two people to prison.
Tanner Monk, 7, was mauled to death by four dogs owned by Crystal Watson and her fiance, Jack Smith.
The couple, now free on an appeals bond, are the first sent to prison under “Lillian’s law,” named for Lillian Stiles, who also was killed by a pack of dogs.
The legislation is an effort to reduce the incidence of maulings by locking up the owners.
They were never agressive; never seen them agressive,” Watson said. “Never bit no one.”
That doesn’t matter.
Watson and Smith’s four four pit bulls savagely attacked Tanner Monk last May near his home outside Breckenridge.
By the time medics reached the little boy, there was nothing they could do for him. He was already dead.
The scene was so gruesome that even seasoned emergency responders broke down and cried.
“Oh, it was terrible,” said Stephens County Deputy Caleb Hodges. “Something you can’t even imagine unless you’ve seen the pictures.”
Hodges said responding lawmen had to shoot two of the dogs to protect themselves; the other two were captured and euthanized.
Crystal Watson said she didn’t think twice about how her dogs were kept. “We lived out in the country. Everyone’s dog ran loose — not just ours,” she said.
But under Lillian’s law, if dogs get off their property and make an “unprovoked” attack, owners now face up to 20 years in prison.
Steve Bristow prosecuted the Tanner Monk case, and summed it up in four short sentences: “They had dogs. They didn’t secure them. They caused a death. They went to prison.”
Good. It is a tough lesson to learn, but you have to be responsible for your dogs, especially if you have large breeds that are more than capable of doing significant damage. In this case, these people, had a pack of pit bulls they allowed to roam the area. Stupid, and tragic.
